Author Topic: A Drone Question (Read 7658 times)

TheHoneyPump · « **Reply #20 on:** December 30, 2018, 04:42:25 pm »

I would think that for marking a large amount of drones quickly at all that you would need is a stool next to the hive and a good dabber. Pul a frame and support on your lap. Get the dabber out, .... just like marking the card at the bingo hall. Dab dab dab dab dab. They do not move much nor quickly when they are young.

As for handling queens in a small space for fear of her flying away, an extra veil in the beeyard works really well. Put the veil on top of a nearby hive. Put a cage and marking tool inside the veil. Catch queeny your hand or a queen catching clip. Put both hands inside the veil. Do your thing marking her or/and caging. If she escapes your grasp, she is contained in the veil and easy to recatch. If you are doing many, you may consider building a small screen box with two hand holes on one side just for this purpose.

Keep it simple.

van from Arkansas · « **Reply #21 on:** December 30, 2018, 05:23:06 pm »

My queen mitt, thank you ID for clarification.

On top of yellow nuc, on top of styrofoam hive.

van from Arkansas · « **Reply #22 on:** December 30, 2018, 05:45:00 pm »

Mr Ben. In the II business we have a term for young drones, to young to mate. They are called fuzzies due to all the hair on thorax. Fuzzies are to young and cannot be properly inverted. So if you grab a fuzzie by mistake, no problem they don?t work, they only partially invert. After 10 days, HP say 14, close enough, the drones invert easily.

Beepro made a comment about killing drones, so noted, however when I think how a drone dies naturally, I have no problem with a quick kill inverting method. Head first, then throax and almost all invert properly, unless to young. The invert method is easy, maintaining sterile conditions is not easy.
Blessings

Ben Framed · « **Reply #23 on:** December 30, 2018, 07:09:03 pm »

You all are adding more and more good stuff here! Loads of good information!! I appreciate y'all adding your thoughts, ideas, and experiences, on this subject. These should benefit the Beekeeper as well as the bee 🐝 Thanks all!
Phillip

robirot · « **Reply #24 on:** December 30, 2018, 08:21:53 pm »

I do it this way:
For drone rearing hives i run them all foundation except for two frames foundationless. Here they build drone comb. Closee upper entrance.

Drones need 42-45 days to fully develop. At X-10 i add a Queen excluder between the bottom board and the lower bottom box, and remove the the two drone frames and give them new empty frames. Many drones will be in these frames, search for the queen if she is not in these frames, just brush the bees off.

In the drone donating hives i use 3/4 foundation and add them in the early spring over an excluder. The last quarter will be filled with drone comb. At X-4 i put them into the brood chambers. At X, again remove the drone frames from the drone rearing colonies and give them new empty frames.

Transfer the frames from the drone donation colonies, into the super of the rearing colony over a excluder.
At X+15 again remove the drone frames from the brood box, same at X+30.

At X+35 i open the top entrance, from 6-7 pm. Same at X+40.
These way the drones can fly freely and habe a chance to defecate and are ready for harvest. But since they fly so late they won't mix up with drones from other colonies, those allready stopped flying. Also since the top entrance is normally always closed, you have no drones waiting here to enter the hive.

Now you have about 5 days for harvesting the drones and allready got a good mix of drones from different mothers.

van from Arkansas · « **Reply #25 on:** December 30, 2018, 08:56:39 pm »

Robirot, question? Do you consider X to be 24 days,drone hatch, or the mature drone 44 days? I just want to be clear. Your adding the queen excluder prior to drone hatching or adding the excluder prior to drones capable of flight? Thank you for your input.
Blessings

robirot · « **Reply #26 on:** December 31, 2018, 06:13:44 am »

X is the day where you add the drone eggs, into the super of the rearing colony.

The excluder on the bottom board is, added 10 days before this. Here you can also use a drone excluder (5,2 mm).

The reason for this excluder is to make sure, you tot no problems with drift from other colonies (you can wonder how much drift you can get, if a colony is nearly free of drones).

The excluder on top of the brood chamber must bee a Queen excluder. It can be added at day X or before. All drones allready beeing in the super will be dead, when the wanted drones are ready. I add it earlier, since i run all supers with excluder, and also i always use rearing colony, which queen is a sister of the drone donating colonies.

The excluder in top of the brood chamber should be built in to an eke or run a shallow super below it. The reason for this, is that it is nearly impossible to always keep the excluder safely fixed to that box during inspections. If lose it, you can lose your full drone poppulation in seconds. You also could use a plastic excluder and fix it permanently onto one super.

van from Arkansas · « **Reply #27 on:** December 31, 2018, 09:43:44 am »

Robirot, I like it. Thank you.

I use colored drones, Cordovan so catch and selection is easy. However, I have an Italian hive showing prospects, still being evaluated. Your method would secure the linage of the Italian drones, if I decide to use them.
Blessings

van from Arkansas · « **Reply #28 on:** December 31, 2018, 04:32:20 pm »

Robirot: In the drone donating hives i use 3/4 foundation and add them in the early spring over an excluder. The last quarter will be filled with drone comb.

I hate to show my ignorance but unless I ask I will not know. What is {3/4 foundation}??? Is that a super frame, 7 1/4 inch or so,,,, or 3 or 4 foundation frames.
Blessings

iddee · « **Reply #29 on:** December 31, 2018, 05:42:58 pm »

If I were going to use 3/4 sheet of foundation to get the last 1/4 drone, I would just insert a drawn shallow or medium frame. She would fill the frame with worker eggs and they would draw a straight comb under it on the bottom bar. They would draw it to a normal depth frame. I have several frames like that in hives now.

TheHoneyPump · « **Reply #30 on:** December 31, 2018, 05:57:00 pm »

For consideration:

For near 100% drone frame to be pulled and moved into another hive, aka The Barracks, the green one piece plastic drone frames work very very very well.

For keeping a healthy ongoing drone to bee ratio in "regular" hives, I cut the bottom 1/3 of foundation out of the black one piece plastic frames. Just cut out a full length window out of the bottom 1/3rd of the foundation, leaving the bottom bar and side bars. The bees will fill that in with all drone, and a number of queen cups too. Every hive has ONE (1), only one, of these frames in the lower box in the #7 position. This works great for me as I run all deeps in absolutely everything and all black plastic frames in the brood chambers. To mark the frame that has the cutout, and subsequently will have drone comb on the lower part of it, I simply put a short flat head screw into the centre of the top bar of the frame. Some day I may switch those out to white plastic for quicker identification.

van from Arkansas · « **Reply #31 on:** December 31, 2018, 06:16:36 pm »

Quote from: iddee on December 31, 2018, 05:42:58 pm

If I were going to use 3/4 sheet of foundation to get the last 1/4 drone, I would just insert a drawn shallow or medium frame. She would fill the frame with worker eggs and they would draw a straight comb under it on the bottom bar. They would draw it to a normal depth frame. I have several frames like that in hives now.
[/quote

Oh I see: Yes, thank you ID... I also have placed a super frame in a deep and just as you stated. The bees fill in the bottom of the super to make new super frame the size of a deep. I discovered this by accident years ago, when I added a full super frame that full of capped honey to a deep for feed as the particular hive needed food for winter. To my surprise the following spring the super was waxed out to the size of a deep...... thanks again.
Blessings

van from Arkansas · « **Reply #32 on:** December 31, 2018, 06:29:20 pm »

Quote from: TheHoneyPump on December 31, 2018, 05:57:00 pm

For consideration:

For near 100% drone frame to be pulled and moved into another hive, aka The Barracks, the green one piece plastic drone frames work very very very well.

For keeping a healthy ongoing drone to bee ratio in "regular" hives, I cut the bottom 1/3 of foundation out of the black one piece plastic frames. Just cut out a full length window out of the bottom 1/3rd of the foundation, leaving the bottom bar and side bars. The bees will fill that in with all drone, and a number of queen cups too. Every hive has one of these frames in the lower box in the #7 position. This works great for me as I run all deeps in absolutely everything and all black plastic frames in the brood chambers. To mark the frame that has the cutout, and subsequently will have drone comb on the lower part of it, I simply put a short flat head screw into the centre of the top bar of the frame. Some day I may switch those out to white plastic for quicker identification.

Thank you HP, a good method to know. I like the use of black foundation for brood, makes seeing eggs much easier. I am trying to slowly switch to black plasta cell for deeps. I do have green drone frames, waxed out and ready for spring.

Speaking of Spring, just you wait. Every year the Florida beeks post a new topic: flowers blooming, any day now.... Makes me so anxious I can hardly stand it. In my area, March is when there are flowers for the bees, I wished January.
Blessings

Ben Framed · « **Reply #33 on:** December 31, 2018, 08:13:39 pm »

@ Van . I have tried sending this to you several times via PM.I have not been successful. So I will try here.
https://youtu.be/jRCfY3_GauQ

van from Arkansas · « **Reply #34 on:** December 31, 2018, 10:51:56 pm »

Mr. Ben, did you notice how gentle those bees were. Impressive honey bees.

van from Arkansas · « **Reply #35 on:** December 31, 2018, 10:53:39 pm »

Try this link:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3vPV_WeQxV8#searching

Did you notice the needle is moved forward after insertion, this is to by pass the value fold or does not work.

Blessings

BeeMaster2 · « **Reply #36 on:** December 31, 2018, 11:16:22 pm »

That is very interesting Stinger.
I thought they had to a special maneuver to insert the seaman. It did not seem like they did anything special.
Jim

blackforest beekeeper · « **Reply #37 on:** January 01, 2019, 04:19:02 am »

Quote from: Stinger13 on December 31, 2018, 06:29:20 pm

Quote from: TheHoneyPump on December 31, 2018, 05:57:00 pm
For consideration:

For near 100% drone frame to be pulled and moved into another hive, aka The Barracks, the green one piece plastic drone frames work very very very well.

For keeping a healthy ongoing drone to bee ratio in "regular" hives, I cut the bottom 1/3 of foundation out of the black one piece plastic frames. Just cut out a full length window out of the bottom 1/3rd of the foundation, leaving the bottom bar and side bars. The bees will fill that in with all drone, and a number of queen cups too. Every hive has one of these frames in the lower box in the #7 position. This works great for me as I run all deeps in absolutely everything and all black plastic frames in the brood chambers. To mark the frame that has the cutout, and subsequently will have drone comb on the lower part of it, I simply put a short flat head screw into the centre of the top bar of the frame. Some day I may switch those out to white plastic for quicker identification.

Thank you HP, a good method to know. I like the use of black foundation for brood, makes seeing eggs much easier. I am trying to slowly switch to black plasta cell for deeps. I do have green drone frames, waxed out and ready for spring.

Speaking of Spring, just you wait. Every year the Florida beeks post a new topic: flowers blooming, any day now.... Makes me so anxious I can hardly stand it. In my area, March is when there are flowers for the bees, I wished January.
Blessings

For standard wired frames I sometimes use a shallow-foundation for a jumbo-frame.
As we got a lot of natural comb anyway, these half foundation-frames give the bees the needed boost with pre-built-comb (the foundation) and they can add underneath what they consider good. If a flow is on in late summer or quick feeding is required, this is a nice compromise.
If added in spring, drone comb will be raised mostly, as mentioned above.

THP: Do you cut out drone-brood?

TheHoneyPump · « **Reply #38 on:** January 01, 2019, 05:13:42 am »

I do not cut out or cull drone brood. I experimented with the drone brood mite trapping method for one season. I/we quickly abandoned the method altogether. Never took it any farther nor towards the larger operation. Reason is The season here is very short and intense. A tremendous amount of energy and resources go into raising drones. To remove and throw out that effort by the bees is inefficient and detrimental in the big picture of what the high goals are in a limited timeline. We simply cannot afford to waste any of the bees effort, time, or resources; nor our own. Instead, I/we encourage and allow the drones in limited but balanced quantity by providing one of the modified frames mentioned in each hive. ( separately there are main drone hives, The Barracks to support queen rearing ops. ) Experience says the hives have to have some drones to be balanced and healthy. They are not just free loaders. Varroa is controlled by a seasonal program of other methods. Regular planned drone brood removal is not part of my IPM program.

That said. Varroa is spot checked by forking the drone brood. The Drone brood is cut out only if a heavy infestation is found. Such finding rare exception.

This video link is ok in quality and information. Repetitive on some points but rightly so as those points repeated are important. Is consistent with the rest of the discussion here.
https://youtu.be/_bEcIyZ9jmg

blackforest beekeeper · « **Reply #39 on:** January 01, 2019, 05:32:25 am »

Quote from: TheHoneyPump on January 01, 2019, 05:13:42 am

I do not cut out or cull drone brood. I experimented with the drone brood mite trapping method for one season. I/we quickly abandoned the method altogether. Never took it any farther nor towards the larger operation. Reason is The season here is very short and intense. A tremendous amount of energy and resources go into raising drones. To remove and throw out that effort by the bees is inefficient and detrimental in the big picture of what the high goals are in a limited timeline. We simply cannot afford to waste any of the bees effort, time, or resources; nor our own. Instead, I/we encourage and allow the drones in limited but balanced quantity by providing one of the modified frames mentioned in each hive. ( separately there are main drone hives, The Barracks to support queen rearing ops. ) Experience says the hives have to have some drones to be balanced and healthy. They are not just free loaders.

That said. Varroa is checked by spot check forking the drone brood. The Drone brood is cut out only if a heavy infestation is found. Such finding rare exception. Varroa is controlled by a seasonal program of other methods. Regular planned drone brood removal is not part of my IPM program.

This video link is ok in quality and information. Repetitive on some points but rightly so as those points repeated are important. Is consistent with the rest of the discussion here.
https://youtu.be/_bEcIyZ9jmg

THP: You tell as I expected. I don?t cut drone-brood for the same reasons. Also, the effect is not as high as is usually told, I think. If I find drone-brood easiyl accessable in colonies I really don`t want to give on genes, I take it. But that occassion is rare.
For the frames: As I got very high bottoms and switched from Jumbo and Langstroth deeps to Jumbos only, I had the frames mixed for a season. hoo boy was I glad when I had all deep frames fished out. I spent felt DAYS cutting back excess comb and dealing with the mess. Never again will I put a wrong frame into an unfitting box.